By now, every jailbird who was still outside the base had realized something was wrong. A half dozen convicts converged on Edge’s team from three sides, although the forest of stone spikes was slowing them down since they weren’t standing near the shattered section.

  In the distance, he could see Ripper’s crew returning, having lost one member during their battle with the goat monster. While the hunters fired a round of ranged attacks, he analyzed the emerging situation.

  If his team dealt with the closest Claws quickly enough, they could eliminate Ripper and deal the jailbirds a major blow. If they were too slow, the strike leader would arrive, and his wide-area Disruption magic would deactivate the hunters’ skills—a short path to a guaranteed death under the circumstances.

  Ripper was the worst possible opponent for Overdrive, and Edge was hoping to save it for Roth regardless—the Claws’ most dangerous elite now that Tiburón was out of the picture.

  He decided this was a perfect opportunity to use his domain in battle for the first time. He ignited his core and saturated the surrounding space within a handful of heartbeats. The wind began blowing across these lonely halls of stone just as the first group of prisoners arrived.

  Edge used gusts from Maelstrom to enhance his mobility, avoiding the jailbirds’ attacks while keeping the killers from converging on his crew. Along the way, he shoved several of them onto stone spikes, killing one man and wounding three more.

  While the Claws were off balance, Mel let loose with a barrage of Force Cleaves. Sasha and Lilly fired off Flame-Imbued arrows and Scattershots, eliminating the weaker convicts before they could draw near.

  Edge dropped Maelstrom after the people who were most susceptible to it perished, focusing on skill combos to take down the jailbirds’ tougher members. They were all stage-two warriors by this point, but none of them could withstand a Double Slash from his iceblade—not when the subzero skill was boosted by Fear the Seasons, Warlord’s Mantle, his Frost Fury Medallion, and the damage bonus from Raid Wiper.

  He took some hits in return, but with his garax-leather armor, diamond scales, and ghostly mantle, none of them broke through his skin. Some toxic mana entered his system at the points of contact—only to be purged by Regeneration.

  Frost-rimed corpses fell to the ground by his boots—blood turned to ice with each cut from his blade. A bare second later, Ripper’s crew joined the fray. The elite’s core ignited as a tsunami of Disruption magic broke over the hunters. Their skills were extinguished like candles in a monsoon—except for Harden and Elemental Blade—which Edge instantly deactivated.

  As the strike leader cracked a cocky grin, Edge stepped in front of the women, brandishing his polearm like it was the only weapon he had.

  All the while, the gears in his head turned at a manic pace. This was a tricky situation. He didn’t have time to engage in a prolonged duel given the volume of mana he could sense from beyond the ruined barricade. Both armies were letting loose with everything they had, which meant Trapper’s team was making their final stand.

  Considering the nature of Ripper’s powers, a direct assault would lead to a lengthy exchange, so Edge decided to go with trickery instead. He had learned from Sasha, Lillian, and Mel—who had been observing the Claws for weeks before he joined them—that Ripper was reviled because he was a coward. His antimagic made him useful enough to put up with, but that was beside the point. If Edge could scare the man badly enough, he might cut and run, leaving his comrades to their fate.

  If this didn’t work, the rest of the crew would have to hold Ripper back while Edge ran to deal with Roth. However, there was a good chance the women would die if they were forced to fight a crew of stage-two convicts without the use of their skills—a dilemma he was desperately hoping to avoid.

  Show him what he expects to see so he thinks he’s in control. Then surprise him, land a painful wound, and hope it’s enough to send him packing. These thoughts passed through Edge’s head as Ripper’s crew came to a stop in front of the forest of stone spikes. When the man met his gaze, his eyes widened with recognition.

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  “Well now, if it isn’t the tourist I ran into in the dungeon. I was shocked to learn you survived being hit by Toxic Dart, let alone defeated the boss of the Savage Garden. I would love to torture you and learn the secret of how you pulled it off, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards. I’ll settle for taking your skull back to Yussuf and presenting it on a silver platter. He’s not the forgiving type, but wiping out your crew and the rest of your expedition should be enough to keep my head on my shoulders—a fair trade, although I can see why you wouldn’t feel the same way.”

  While the scarred man bantered, he kept his wide-area Disruption skill flared at full power. It must have cost him an incredible amount of mana to suppress four cored opponents at once, but it let Ripper’s team approach in relative safety. Sasha and Lilly fired off some old-fashioned missiles, but the experienced warriors simply stepped out of the way or let them shatter against their Durable bodies.

  Edge was advancing with his naginata at the ready, keeping the jailbirds’ attention on him instead of attacking the rest of his crew. There were only two of them besides Ripper, and if he was reading the situation right, they were planning to kill him while the strike leader suppressed his mana. Ripper must not be able to activate any other powers while he’s using that skill.

  Sure enough, the strike leader stood still while his team stepped forward with their spears poised to strike. They lunged from opposite sides at the same moment, slipping past Edge’s guard to bury their weapons in his gut… or so he wanted them to think.

  A terrible screech rang out as their spearpoints scraped along Harden’s scales a heartbeat before he lashed out with a fully flared Double Slash. The dual fields expanded in the blink of an eye, cutting the heads off both warriors with the extra reach the skill’s rank-three upgrade provided.

  “How?” Ripper scrambled back while struggling to maintain his power. “That shouldn’t be possible unless... Oh shit. You have Counter Disruption.” That was, in fact, exactly what had happened. Edge had switched the meta skill from Elemental Blade to Double Slash, leaving it linked to Harden.

  Ripper’s skill was so powerful that even Edge’s protected powers were noticeably weakened, but it wasn’t sufficient to deactivate them. By flaring Harden and Double Slash, he’d been able to boost them enough to deflect two Lunges and then finish off the warriors who had lowered their guard after landing what they thought was a killing blow.

  While the strike leader was recovering from his surprise, Edge darted in and Double Slashed, catching Ripper in the meat of his shoulder as blood flew into the air. The man was forced to drop his skill to scramble out of the way, preventing Edge from claiming his head with a follow-up strike.

  The Claw flung a dart covered in Disruption—the same toxic missile that nearly killed Edge in the Savage Garden—but he had anticipated the moved, and the dart deflected off his diamond scales without transferring the poison it contained.

  Faced with an enemy he couldn’t disable and cut off from the rest of his army, the elite jailbird turned and ran for his life, flinging a screen of consumables to cover his retreat. The handful of wounded Claws who had emerged from their base camp to report the monster’s attack fled with him, leaving the way clear for Edge’s crew to proceed through the breach in the wall.

  He could hear frantic fighting and screaming emanating from inside. His people were still alive, but that might not be the case for much longer.

  The instant Ripper abandoned the battlefield, Edge’s crew sprinted through the breach in the ruined barricade. When they made it to the far side, a nightmarish scene awaited his gaze.

  By now, the conflict had reached a fever pitch. The expedition was arranged in a half circle with their backs against the wall. Their strongest fighters were front-row center, taking on a skittering army of insects. Rising above the chittering tide was a colossal centipede with Roth riding bareback.

  Trapper, Able, and the expedition’s other stage-two warriors were barely holding the line, and all of them were covered in blood. Trapper wasn’t using any skills other than an occasional puff of Manipulate Air, which meant her reservoir had nearly run dry. Everyone looked utterly exhausted, and it was clear their formation would collapse at any moment.

  The convicts were in better shape, although most of them were injured too. That was all the time for analysis Edge was granted, because that was when the defenders’ line buckled. Within another few seconds, the Claws were going to break through the warriors and hit the ranged and support teams beyond, precipitating a gruesome slaughter.

  He wasn’t about to let that happen.

  He was almost out of mana, but he still had an ace tucked up his sleeve. Knowing that every heartbeat brought his friends closer to the precipice of annihilation, Edge didn’t hesitate.

  He pointed himself toward the threatened position, gathered his will, and activated Skill-Eater’s ultimate ability. Overdrive.